Points of Contact
| European Commission: (name) Email: Telephone: | U.S. Government: OSHA – MaryAnn Garrahan Director - Office of Technical Programs and Coordination Activities Email: Garrahan.MaryAnn@dol.gov Telephone: 202-693-2110 |
| EU Delegation in Washington: (name) Email: Telephone: | U.S. Mission to the EU: Louis Santamaria Email: Louis.santamaria@mail.doc.gov Telephone: 32-2-508-2674 |
To eliminate unnecessary regulatory divergences in key sectors.
Specific Objectives
Initiate exchange on conformity assessment procedures for the safety of electrical equipment.
Progress
Through the April 2007 U.S.-EU Transatlantic Framework Agreement, the European Commission requested that the U.S. change its current third-party certification system to allow manufacturers to use a Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity (SDoC) to determine the safety of specified electrical products used in the U.S. workplace.
Following through on its commitment at the May 2008 TEC meeting, the U.S. Department of Labor/OSHA published in the Federal Register an RFI (request for information) to aid it in determining whether an SDoC regime would be a viable alternative or supplement to its current, third-party laboratory-based regime for certifying specified electrical products as safe for the workplace. The RFI public comment period was from October 20, 2008 to January 20, 2009.
OSHA completed its evaluation of the responses to the RFI and now is drafting a document that will announce the results of its analysis of the information provided during the public comment period.
Note – In the context of EMC (electromagnetic compatibility), the U.S. FCC indicated that, in 2008, it would review products subject to its mandatory third-party testing to allow suppliers declarations of conformity for products with a good record of compliance with relevant standards.
Next Steps
OSHA will complete a draft announcement and obtain the necessary intra- and interagency government clearance for its publication in the U.S. Federal Register. The announcement will describe whether OSHA will commence rulemaking to adopt SDoC, take some other action, or take no further action regarding SDoC. OSHA currently expects to publish its decision as a Federal Register notice in the Spring 2010.
Follow FCC progress on rulemaking and incremental increase in the use of SDoC for EMC.
Reference Documents
The Federal regulatory clearinghouse, Regulations.gov, provides one-stop, online access for the public to view supporting documents and to view or submit public comments concerning federal regulations, adjudication, and other actions. Access the SDoC RFI by clicking the Bookmark icon { }, or by going to Regulations.gov. and search for "OSHA-2008-0032."
